Irreversible
 

This Monica Bellucci and Vincent Cassel film really amazed me.
It gives a severe jolt to your system: The fire exguinisher to the head scene, and the subway scene where Bellucci is given a horrific time in regards to the brutal attack she recieves.

In foreign language and English subtitles, it is well worth a look, but if your squemish keep well away.

This movie made people leave the cinemas well before the 45 minute mark and Bellucci was told by her mother that after filming the subway scene, she would never work in Hollywood again.
Shes back, and Shoot Em Up is fantastic..........and so is Monica!!!!!!!

Re: What do you think of Irreversible?
 

hi
I seen this movie 3 times but still i am not able to understand the concept or moral of the movie but the location where the picture was made is really good

Re: What do you think of Irreversible?
 

Terrible film. Absolute garbage. So many film buffs hail this movie as amazing simply because it's "different". You can apply this effect to anything really. Just because it is shot like no other film, has a few brutal scenes, and is utterly incomprehensible, does not make the film great, contrary to what so many people believe. The blatant rape scene alone makes people believe the film is an achievement. Why? Anyone could have shot that same exact scene. There was no skill behind it.

Honestly, what was the point of the way the film was shot? It served no purpose to the film and gives people headaches. Honestly, the first few minutes I thought the camera work was...interesting. After the fourth minute I had a migraine. It's absolutely ridiculous and honestly just appears to be an outlet for the director to make a name for himself as a unique filmmaker.

Honestly, I don't like critics all that much and their backdoor dealings. Most are paid to give a rave review when they really think a movie is crap. If 10 critics says a movie is crap, while 10 others say it's great, I'm going to question both and see for myself. However, if 100 critics unanimously agree a film is crap, there really is no doubt that the film is crap. Thus, Rottentomatoes score for Irreversible: 56%. Even if I hadn't seen the film, based off it's score, I would naturally believe its crap. Would I may still question it a little bit? Possibly. But not really. Yes there are exceptions when it comes to Rottentomatoes aggregated score. But few. And yes, sometimes I disagree when majority of critics believe a film is crap. But in this film's case. Never.

Re: What do you think of Irreversible?
 

I disagree. The way the film is shot during the "club rectum" scene is not meant to be shaky and off-balanced for no reason. It was Noe's way of conveying Marcus' rage in a unique way. as Roger Ebert said, by showcasing the events in reverse, one is forced to deal with the consequences and responses BEFORE seeing the stimuli. The director tortures you in this film. It makes one nauseous, and thats how a rape victim would feel. The main theme of "Time Destroys Everything" brings the film full circle at the beginning and at the end. Showing how a single event can change someones entire life. The rape being an axis in which the polar opposites of scenery and tone at the start and finish spin. This movie is a terrible experience, but one of true morality and emotion. You must think hard about it

This is a very divisive film; people tend to either hail or condemn it. I really don't have much of an opinion on it, which might seem weird, but I saw it under odd circumstances and I know I wasn't in the best state of mind to accurately perceive/judge the film. I suppose I could watch it again sometime and weigh in properly, but there are thousands of other films that would take priority over a rewatch of this.

Re: What do you think of Irreversible?
 

So basically you were stoned when you watched it? lol.

That seems like it would be truly freaky

Re: What do you think of Irreversible?
 

I love the way this film is shot... love the ending...

I must fall into the "didn't like it" camp. I don't buy into all the swerving, rotating camerawork having anything to do with the disorientation of the characters. Marcus was already blitzed out of his mind at the party and acting like a jerk before he knew what happened to Alex. I feel its purpose is to purely disorient the viewers. I also don't buy into anything about the alleged plot of the film. I don't mind the fact that they set a key scene in a gay sex club but having the rapist be gay just seemed to show how the director was trying to be as extreme as he possibly could be.


Then there are the later scenes (which mean the "earlier" scenes) toward the end where the warm glow of the lighting infuses the film with a "humanity" which is missing from the "grittier" parts. Although I find those scenes aesthetically pleasing, the writer/director goes and screws up the thing by having reverse foreshadowing where Alex dreams of herself in a red tunnel and Marcus decides he wants to have anal sex with her. That comes across as horse pucky and amateurish. As far as the theme that "Time destroys everything", that is almost meaningless. Most films and literaturre allude to this in one way or another. So, even if the film is allegedly "moral" and tries to show both sides of the human condition, I still find the film to have a lousy script and lousy direction. I don't really care one way or the other about it being shown in reverse order, but I am guessing that I might think slightly better of it in this format because watching it in chronolgical order probably would just get me madder at auteur Gaspar Noé. As far as the fire extinguisher scene goes, I don't think it's necessary to show ten more smashes to the head after you've already seen the first ten, but I guess Noé will always have to try to top himself, at least until he's confident enough to make a film with real characters and something interesting to say.

It's amazing, and one of my top five films of the last decade and top 100 of all time. Probably the most disturbing film I've ever seen and along with Point Blank, One Eyed Jacks, and The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada it's about the best revenge movie, with a nice twist. Maybe I should say a nice spiral. By it playing out backwards it really does show revenge doesn't always work - probably more often than not revenge doesn't.

The way it was filmed made it appear more to real life than most films. I recently watched a bit of it again and my girlfriend finally watched it and appreciated it.

Re: What do you think of Irreversible?
 

Meh.

Re: What do you think of Irreversible?
 

I loved but I like most films with Cassel in and several of the French Extreme Cinema. It may not be ground breakin but Noe's camera work is pretty distinctive and i've always found the most powerful part the last scene when you see them before the events, the chemistry between Belluci and Cassel really hammers and grounds Cassel's actions from the first half.

Re: What do you think of Irreversible?
 

Plot goes backward just like Memento...but this movie is so much better than Memento.

Re: Irreversible
 

Irreversible is not that great of a film. Would anyone really care if it didn't have those controversial scenes? Maybe they would, I don't know, but I didn't find anything special about Irreversible. Both films used that gimmick well, but one also needed controversy to get the attention Noé wanted. Same goes for Enter the Void, as well. Nice idea, but the acting was hilariously bad.

Re: Irreversible
 

I've seen this on DVD 3 years ago and it was boring. I thought the long rape scene was insignificant and the rotating camera gave me headache. But the ending really tied the whole story together. So i thought this movie was not bad after all.. but still it bored me death.

You win the thread, sir.

It's a bad movie, with a paper thin revenge plot, and moments of dialog so boring that I almost fell asleep.

I agree with Justin, if the controversial scenes weren't in the film, no one would say enything about it. Ever.

There's no reaso to edit the film backward other than to make the "reveal" in the end more shocking. It fits right along with the entire rest of the film, though, because it seems like Noe is simply trying to shock his audience.

The worst thing about the film is the second half, which bored the crap out of me. If you're going to have largely improvised dialog in extended takes, at least tell your actors to make it dialog that is interesting. There's exactly two points that they need to make after the rape scene and they take half of the damn film to make those points.

I think the film may have actually worked better had they not played things out in reverse. Sure, the point of the film is to have that emotional climax of the reveal at the end, but by playing the events backward you have no reason to care about the characters before their individual climaxes play out. By the time I got to the end my thought was "who cares?"

All that said, I enjoyed Enter the Void. Despite it also having his obvious failing of shocking scenes just for the sake of being shocking. I felt the gratuitous moments in Enter the Void worked better. I also thought the improvised acting wasn't as intollerable, despite being pretty shoddy.

Re: Irreversible
 

They place a lot of emphasis on the violent scenes in this movie. I've seen horror films that are less brutal.

Re: Irreversible
 

I'm not going to cheerlead for this film, but I think it's overstating things to say that there's no point to the events playing out backwards. They achieve a very specific purpose...

Not a fan of Kill Bill, then? ;)

I get that, I just don't like it. I prefer to root for something. Anything. Personally I think the film would work with the exact same message if it played out in chronological order. And it would be a (slightly) stronger film because the viewer would be emotionally invested from the get go.

But that's, just, like, my opnion, man.

Just saying, this is a terrible human quality

I don't know, for me it's a real "Rosebud was the sled" moment because it seems like all but the most lightweight discussion of the film mentions the film's two most infamous scenes in conjunction with a revenge plot, making it fairly easy to ascertain that the two are connected (one scene is the cause, the other is the effect).

Re: Irreversible
 

Well, that might be, but it would hardly be the first time that reviews or discussion ruined part of a film before people saw it.

Re: Irreversible
 

Of course, but these two scenes basically sum up the entire movie. Sure, there's more to it than that but it's not like most of the remaining scenes do that much to add weight or significance to the film as a whole.

Re: Irreversible
 

I understand. I don't want to put myself in the position of championing this film. I wanted to do no more or less than dispute the idea that the scenes being in reverse order doesn't have any point or purpose behind shocking people at the end.

What's it like being better than all of humanity?

Does it, though? Really? If it did, would the need be there to have a 10-minute-long rape scene and a very graphic murder? I still feel you could get the same message within the film no matter what story-telling device you use to get there.

Either way, I still don't like the film! :D

EDIT: I Saw the Devil!

For me, the scenes being backwards, illuminates the lives destroyed by the revenge. So the character's are at their most sympathetic when we already know the doom waiting for them, which makes the entire thing that much more tragic. Plot wise and emotional, this was a much better and more fascination use of backwards storytelling than Memento, though I love Memento, it simply is not in this film's league.

well I'm not cheering for anything regardless of my morality like you said you did, so I'm doing better than you.



It's not about getting the same message, it's about the impact. A kid's sock puppet show could give you the same message as this film, but no kid would ever feel like it's "that bad". This film shows things not for your entertainment, but still in a cinematic way to express the distress and unfathomable atrocity that such acts provide. That doesn't make it bad.

Then why are you still arguing about it?

It's a fantastic film, but not the "Good" version of this. It shares a lot of the same qualities actually, the very raw depiction of violence. However, in that film you are also not cheering for the vengeance seeker as you feel he has gone too far fairly early in, so in your taste it should be a terrible movie because you don't cheer anything on. Both films are learning experiences.

There's still "good" people in Irreverisble. You seem to be ignoring that. What I should root for is A) Vincent Cassel to overcome his grief and drop his hunt or B) Vincent and Monica to overcome the tragedy. If morality is a concern. After all, this isn't a "fun" revenge romp!

And, yes, before you say it, this would make it a completely different movie. Maybe that's why i don't like it. Maybe I wanted to see a film that lets me judge things for myself instead of shoving it's moral in my face. By reversing the chronology I have no "debate" about the concept of revenge/vengeance. It's simply shoved in my face. There's no subtlety or ambiguity to the film.



True, the message could be told many ways. The problem with Irreversible (as I've already said) is that the impact gets lost because the film descends into an endurance test. Not wether or not I can sit through an over long rape scene, but can I sit through an hour of near pointless, tedious character building scenes that should have existed before the ten minute rape scene.

Because i'm lonely. Duh. :p

I'm rooting for the "protagonist" to get revenge. For a little bit. Then I'm just rooting for his humanity. You didn't get that? You really think there are films where you shouldn't be rooting for something? Maybe you're not as advanced as you thought you were...;)

This contradicts this:
You don't seem to understand the purpose of it existing backwards.

That's twisting the concept of "rooting" to something dumb. There are many films where you don't root for something, Korean vengeance films for one and Lolita for another. It's not a tough concept.

Maybe I don't. Isn't the purpose to make me realize the Vincent Cassel winds up the bad guy? Yoda already explained it. I was just pointing out that you can make that exact same message in the end while still building the characters into something that I'd give a flaming crap about. Can we just agree to disagree on Irreversible? I hated it for reasons other than the fact that it plays backwards.

I, unfortunately, haven't seen Lolita (despite owning the Kubrick box set for years...) but I've seen some Korean vengeance films. I'd love to hear specific films that give me no emotional investment on purpose.

Re: Irreversible
 

Well, any Kubrick film (which is why people hate him), Vengeance Is Mine, The Ruling Class, Naked, Rashomon, Divorce Italian Style, Visitor Q, but sticking to Korea, Real Fiction may be the most obvious, I could make an argument for Oldboy and Lady Vengeance but that's a lot more emotionally complicated, The Coast Guard too.

Kubrick made films that had a certain amount of cold detachment, I agree with that. But there's undeniably an amount of humanity present in all of his works, IMO. I never had trouble with any of his films identifying with at least one character.

I've seen Visitor Q, Oldboy and Lady Vengeance. I see what you're saying, but I still feel some sort of emotional attachment to those films, even when it's akward or repulsive.

The only thing Irreversible left me with was a slight amount of revulsion, which, most likely, is what Noe wanted. So, good job!

Re: Irreversible
 

I have read on this threat,someone sad,i think Yoda,that movie is all about ending,and just that ending is interesting...i agree with that,but i still think that film is great,first half and ending....

Re: Irreversible
 

This movie is fantastic. It really is. It's so bleak,nihilistic, yet true. I mean it's not a film you want to rewatch, or one that gives you "warm" feelings. But it's thought-provoking and powerful. The idea that no matter what we can't change the outcome of our lives is horrifying.

Re: Irreversible
 

Hmm, I don't believe this film to be very thought provoking. I think the word being thrown around is gimmicky and thats also what i think in regards of how it's filmed.

It boils down to another rape movie, shock cinema some kind of exploitation you name it. Is it more than your straight forward vulgar brutal movie? yes, should you put much thought into it? no.

I don't mean to offend anyone that enjoys the film, ive seen quite a few brutal movies, this being no where near the worst but at the end of the day he's going for shocks and to me thats one big gimmick albeit not always bad.

Provoking yes. But not thought provoking.

Re: Irreversible
 

^ Agreed

Re: Irreversible
 

I don't think this was intended to be thought provoking, but I also don't put it in 'shock for shock' category. Personally I adore this movie. It's incredibly effective, that droning techno in Club Rectum or whatever it was called is so perfectly mind numbing for the scene it's used in. I think it's time for a rewatch.

Irreversible wins the prize for the most unorthodox use of a fire extinguisher in a film.:p